APPENDIX 2
Memorandum submitted by The Parliamentary
Advisory Council for Transport Safety
1. The Parliamentary Advisory Council for
Transport Safety (PACTS) is a registered charity and an associate
Parliamentary Group. Its charitable objective is, "To
protect human life through the promotion of transport safety for
the public benefit". Its aim is to advise and inform
members of the Houses of Parliament on air, rail and road safety
issues. PACTS brings together safety professionals and legislators
to identify research-based solutions to transport safety problems
having regard to cost, effectiveness, achievability and acceptability.
We welcome the opportunity to contribute to the current inquiry.
2. PACTS is a transport safety research
group. As such, this submission will largely address the second
item listed in the inquiry's terms of reference, "how the
agencies contribute to departmental objectives and policy",
from the perspective of road safety and casualty reduction.
3. The Department for Transport's road safety
and casualty reduction objectives and policies are most clearly
articulated in Tomorrow's roads—safer for everyone,
published in March 2000. This strategy set targets for casualty
reduction by 2010:
— 40% reduction in the number of people
killed or seriously injured;
— 50% reduction in the number of children
killed or seriously injured; and
— 10% reduction in the slight casualty
rate, expressed as injuries per 100 million vehicle kilometres.
4. The targets can be seen as the Department's
key road casualty reduction outcome, from which a range of policies
and activities flow. In considering the role of the DVO agencies
in achieving the departmental objectives and policies, it is useful
to examine how they have contributed to achieving these targets.
5. As a result of concerted effort from
many government, local government and community organisations,
good progress has been made towards the reduced road casualties
noted above. The review of Tomorrow's roads—safer for
everyone, released in April 2004, indicated that there was
a 17% reduction in people killed or seriously injured; a 33% reduction
in children killed or seriously injured; and a 12% reduction in
the slight casualty rate. This progress was confirmed in the casualty
statistics for 2004 published in September 2005.
6. However, there remain some areas which
have not seen the same improvement that are within the remit of
the agencies currently being examined by the inquiry.
7. There is an ongoing issue with newly
qualified, young drivers and the frequency with which they crash.
An earlier House of Commons inquiry report, the 1999 Young
and Newly Qualified Drivers: Standards and Training, cited
statistics on their likelihood to be involved in a crash:
— The 17-24 age group holds only 11%
of licences, but they are involved in 25% of accidents annually
in which someone is killed or seriously injured.
— Drivers aged 16-19 have 16 accidents
per thousand licence holders, compared to just six per thousand
licences for drivers aged over 25 years.
— Male drivers aged 17-20 are 10 times
more likely to die in a collision than for men aged 35-54.
— Very newly qualified drivers are
at particularly high risk, with one in five new drivers involved
in a collision in their first year of driving. [2]
Also of concern is that, while the overall number
of deaths on British roads fell by 8% in 2004, fatalities among
16-19 year old drivers or passengers rose by 12.3% over the same
period. [3]
8. As the agency responsible for accrediting
driving instructors and setting and assessing the theoretical
and practical driving exam, there is room for the Driving Standards
Agency (DSA) to do more towards achieving the departmental objectives
of reducing road casualties for this demographic.
9. In response to a Parliamentary Question
regarding reducing car accidents involving young people, Minister
of State for Transport, Dr Stephen Ladyman, noted the conclusions
of a departmental report on the topic, which were that:
"the way forward is to improve the education
environment so that learners have access to a more consistent
and better standard of training;
the Department's Driving Standards Agency
(DSA) should consider what further learning resources might be
made available to learners and trainers. In particular, they will
look at how modern learning techniques and information technology
can be further developed and used to help learners develop safe
driving skills for life; and
the regulatory arrangements for driving instructors
will also be reviewed to ensure that the public can have confidence
that the driver training services they are buying are of the highest
quality. DSA will consult interested parties on measures to achieve
these changes." [4]
10. The Department is undertaking a repeat
of the cohort study, to track and evaluate the way people learn
to drive, their attitudes and behaviour and their involvement
in crashes. The DSA's Driver Record and Pass Plus schemes are
also being analysed. The DSA is to be congratulated on its involvement
in this important research.
11. In line with the Minister's statement,
PACTS would urge the Committee to consider recommending that the
DSA respond and implement recommendations from these research
studies where they indicate that improving the driving education
environment could contribute to reducing road casualties.
12. At the same time, clause 14 of Schedule
5 of the Road Safety Bill 2005 amends section 133ZA(Training)
of the Road Traffic Act 1988. The clause would empower
the Secretary of State to specify the nature and providers of
training to would-be driving instructors. In drawing up such regulations,
the Secretary of State must have regard to such research as has
been conducted into the link between quality of instruction and
subsequent accident involvement of those receiving paid instruction.
13. The 1999 inquiry recommended that the
Government introduce a mandatory minimum period of six months
or a year between obtaining a provisional licence and taking the
driving test. [5]PACTS
would support the implementation of this earlier recommendation
on similar grounds to those articulated in the inquiry report:
increased learning time and additional maturity would contribute
to a lower likelihood of crashes.
14. In his response to amendments in the
Road Safety Bill 2005 pertaining to restrictions on young and
newly qualified drivers, Lord Davies of Oldham indicated that,
"people who have just passed the test
cannot have a level of competence that matches that of the experienced
driver because nothing can substitute for experience".
A mandatory learning period would assist in increasing
the amount of driving experiences young people have before setting
out as a fully licensed driver.
15. PACTS recognises that many learner drivers
already spend between six months and a year learning before taking
the driving test. A mandatory learning period would contribute
to greater skill level in newly qualified drivers, but would not
on its own address the current problems.
16. Given the ongoing issue of newly qualified
drivers and their frequent collisions, PACTS would therefore also
support an examination by DSA to further improve the learning
and testing regime to encourage both technical proficiency and
awareness of the wider road environment.
17. There is also scope for the Drivers
and Vehicles Licensing Agency (DVLA) to improve its databases
to assist in the achievement of road casualty reduction objectives.
The 2005 PACTS report, Policing Road Risk: enforcement, technologies
and road safety, discussed in detail the need for up to date
and accurate data on drivers and vehicles to ensure that advances
in enforcement mechanisms, such as Automatic Number Plate Recognition
schemes can function effectively.
18. Vehicle registration offences of the
type detected by ANPR may not be dangerous activities in themselves.
However, they undermine the licensing and registration system
that underpins road safety. Drivers without tax or insurance are
more likely to engage in dangerous behaviour and research shows
that groups engaging in minor criminality are also more likely
to engage in major criminality and to be involved in road crashes.
19. In addition, many other agencies engaged
in understanding and enforcing road safety, in particular the
police, rely on the DVLA for data. The accuracy of those data
has implications for the efficiency with which the police are
able to enforce road traffic and other laws.
20. Database accuracy issues are perhaps
the single greatest challenge to the effectiveness of ANPR and
automated enforcement and have significant implications for enforcement
agencies. The DVLA should continue to work on the accuracy and
timeliness of its data to support road traffic law enforcement
and reduce road casualties. To assist with this, the Committee
should consider recommending that the National Audit Office conduct
an audit of the database accuracy of the DVLA.
21. It is also of concern that there is
no automated link between driver and vehicle licensing within
the records of the DVLA. The proliferation of automated enforcement
systems has put new strains on the licensing structure. The absence
of a link appears to be a major barrier to the effectiveness of
automated enforcement. The Committee should therefore recommend
that the DfT and DVLA commission a wide-ranging review of the
options for establishing such a link.
22. In terms of the Highways Agency, it
is important to note that although the roads under the Agency's
control amount to about 4% of the road network in England, they
carry 35% of the traffic. Statistically, they are the safest roads
being designed to an appropriate standard for vehicles travelling
at higher speeds. What is also important to note is that the Agency
undertakes substantial research into the accidents that occur
on its roads and the identification of suitable counter-measures.
PACTS believes that this amounts to a significant resource for
road safety and that it should be disseminated as widely as possible
within the professional road safety field.
9 January 2006
2 House of Commons Environment, Transport and Regional
Affairs Committee, Young and Newly Qualified Drivers: Standards
and Training, October 1999, p vii. Back
3
Association of British Insurers, Young Drivers: road safety
and the cost of motoring, p 3. Back
4
House of Commons, Hansard, 6 December 2005. Back
5
House of Commons Environment, Transport and Regional Affairs
Committee, op cit, p xx. Back
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